This piece was reprinted by OpEd News with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.
Burns can be counted on to help Biden resuscitate the Iran nuclear deal the more so, since Burns played a key role in getting the negotiations with Iran started. He has argued that the nuclear deal from which President Donald Trump withdrew makes the whole region safer, including Israel.
Burns knows better than most that he has an important National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear posture to cite as a model of the kind of painstaking, serious analysis that can help prevent unnecessary war.
George W. Bush and Dick Cheney bemoaned the fact that that particular NIE, published in November 2007, did much to spike their plans for an attack on Iran during their last year in office. The Estimate stated unanimously, with high confidence, that Iran had stopped working on a nuclear weapon at the end of 2003 and had not resumed it. That judgment has been reasserted in the years since.
Intelligence Without Fear or Favor
Biden said Monday that Burns "shares my profound belief that intelligence must be apolitical ..." There are some early hints that Burns has the substantive depth, skill, and courage to ensure that this happens in the ranks of agency analysts.
What we know of Burns's performance, particularly as ambassador to Russia (2005-2008), suggests that he will shy away from fudging things and, in turn, encourage substantive analysts to follow his example and speak candidly to superiors. Former senior State Department officials I contacted on Monday share this view.
From Moscow With Candor: Burns a Straight Shooter
Despite then Secretary of State James Baker's promise to Mikhail Gorbachev in early Feb. 1990 that NATO would not move "one inch" east from the borders of a reunited Germany, by early 2008, NATO had already added 10 new members: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. NATO relations with Russia plummeted and there was no sign Washington policymakers gave a damn.
Amid rumors that Ukraine and Georgia would soon be in queue for NATO membership, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Feb. 1, 2008 called in Ambassador Burns to read him the riot act.
The subject line of Burns's CONFIDENTIAL cable #182 of Feb. 1, in which he reported Lavrov's remarks to Washington, shows that Burns played it straight, choosing not to mince his own or Lavrov's words: "Nyet means nyet: Russia's NATO enlargement redlines," he wrote. (This embassy Moscow cable is among those leaked by Chelsea Manning to WikiLeaks. It has been largely ignored in Western media.)
Burns wrote:
"Following a muted first reaction to Ukraine's intent to seek a NATO Membership Action Plan at the [upcoming] Bucharest summit, Foreign Minister Lavrov and other senior officials have reiterated strong opposition, stressing that Russia would view further eastward expansion as a potential military threat. NATO enlargement, particularly to Ukraine, remains an emotional and neuralgic issue for Russia, but strategic policy considerations also underlie strong opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia. In Ukraine, these include fears that the issue could potentially split the country in two, leading to violence or even, some claim, civil war, which would force Russia to decide whether to intervene. ..." [Emphasis added.]
It took some courage to tell then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that Russia is entitled to have "strategic policy considerations" and that Moscow might have to decide to intervene.
So, it is not as though Secretary Rice and other U.S. policymakers were not warned, in very specific terms, of Russia's redline on Ukrainian membership in NATO.
Nevertheless, on April 3, 2008, the final declaration at a NATO summit in Bucharest asserted: "NATO welcomes Ukraine's and Georgia's Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO."
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
